You don't say anything about your layout. Is everything on one drive or
partition? You did a clean install from CD of what? 9.04? Why not install
9.10 if you are doing a clean install? Also you say you backed up your data.
When and how did you import your data? How did you back up? Did you use the
command line or did you use Nautilus to back up?

If your setup is the usual with everything residing on one partition you
should consider having a custom setup with /home on its own partition. Then
you would not need to back up your data. You just reuse your old user name
and set the mount point for /home to your old /home partition. If you do
have to re-install consider this option. It saves tons of work in the long
run. I can step you through the process if you like.

However, assuming that you have no separate /home partition, all is not lost
as long as you have you old data still intact. Usually things go smoothly,
but the odd time the installation process goes awry and you need to start
again. I know because it has happened to me more than once. I do lots of
installing.

If this was my system, I would install 9.10 from scratch and then once you
have it installed, I would use the Live CD a second time and copy all files
including hidden files and folders from the backup of /home to the new
/home. Then re-boot into the new system. I would seriously consider a
separate /home partition. Once done you never have to do this again.

If I may also ask a question in this discussion, generally how big to
make the /home partition. Or more to the point I think how big
to make the /root partition and all of its sub directories. I use to
administer Unix systems back in my work lift several OS generations ago
and I don't remember the rule of thumb. And knowing that those Unix
systems were multi user with lots of users, I think I remember the /root
system was quite small and included only a few directories needed for
single user mode. In the PC everything will be under /root but it would
seem to me /home will depend on how much stuff you expect to store, but
maybe someone uses a rule of thumb to decide what size to make it during
creation, and can it be repartitioned later if you decide to redo it
because of not making it big enough at the beginning.
Another question, I have just loaded 9.04 on a new used PC I am
putting to another use. I can connect to my router and check router
options so the cable is working fine, however I can't get through the
router to the internet, which is connect, I can get there on the other 4
PC's. My security log says something about "blocked DoS connection", if
the exact message is needed I can get it later. I was wondering if there
is something within 9.04 that needs an update, but since I can't do
updates because of no connection to the internet.
Having been away for any Unix flavors I am now relearning and then some
things have changed too.

It depends on your habits. If you do lots of downloading and create lots of
data then you need a large home partition. If you plan on adding lots of
applications then you need a large root partition. There is no magic ratio.

You can get by on a bare bones installation with 4 GBs, but that is not
advised. You should use 6 or even 8 GBs for bare bones. If you plan on
installing more applications then go larger. Obviously larger is better than
smaller. I have Ubuntu 9.10 running on a 16 GB SD card on my eeePC and it
runs fine. I have even had it run on a 8 GB. On my main computer, the sky is
the limit.

I have never run out of space on my root partition, but I have run out of
space on home in the past many times. I usually allow 30 GBs for root and at
least 50 GBs for home. If you have more space devote it to home because
after awhile ratios no longer apply because you cannot fill up the root
partition past a certain point. If you are limited in the amount of space
then you need to be vigilant in reducing waste. Clean out your caches and
move data off line as needed.

A good utility is Ubuntu Tweak from Getdeb.net. It is better than Computer
Janitor in that it cleans out caches, old kernels, etc.

As for the router problem, I am no expert here. I am lazy or at least that
is my excuse. My son is a network admin so I have never had to do anything.
He set it up once and it has always worked. I know that he connects through
the terminal, but you can connect through the browser, too. I have set up my
wireless connection many times using the GUI.

Here is a good guide:
www.debianadmin.com/...sic-and-advanced-users.html
Here is the Ubuntu page:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetAndNetworking

I am also sure that some of network gurus here can come to your rescue.

Thanks for the reply about /home. I swapped out the 9.04 disk with one
of 8.04. This comes up and works great with firebird. So either I have
something not configured right, more than likely, or something with that
version of Ubuntu. I may down load an ISO of 9.10 and copy over the 9.04
disk and see what happens there. If I do that, I will experiment with
partitioning and create /home and just split the disk, I think it is
about 130 GB so I should have plenty for each.

ive done a clean install of 9.10,
but how to set it to use the old home partition/folders and data?

If you have everything on one partition now you will have to back it up and
then go ahead with the custom installation making two partitions from the
available space.

You need to do a custom installation. One partition will be used for the
root files system (where your applications are installed) and the other will
be used for your home partition (data and settings). In the custom
installation you format the root partition to the file system of your choice
(ext3 or ext4) with the mount point /. You do not format the /home partition
unless it is empty (your first time). ie. The first time you do it, you need
to format but if you intend to re-use it you don't. You need to choose the
file format (ext3 or 4, depending on what you originally formatted it as)
and set the mount point as /home.

here is an example:
Say you have one drive sda which you divide into two partitions sda1 and
sda2. Use sda1 for root and choose the file format as ext4 and the mount
point as /. Use sda2 for home and choose the file format as ext4 (if it was
ext3 before you can keep it as ext3, otherwise it will be converted to ext4)
and set the mount point as /home. Format both if it is the first time and
only format root if you already have a second partition with its own /home.
(Note: there is a box to check for formatting. Choosing the file format does
not imply that you intend to format it which wipes it clean. You actually
need to check to box to wipe it and start fresh.)

If you have a separate home partition already you must set the mount points
as above and use the same username. When Ubuntu loads it will load your old
user settings and all of your data will be there because you have the same
user name and have not formatted.

My username is abc. I re-use it and would change my password or not. This
would create the link to /home/abc where it will store my files and
settings. If it previously exists it will simply re-use what is there, which
is the beauty of having a separate home partition. Alternatively you could
create a new user account and move your data from the old. Let's say, my old
account was abc, but I don't want to use all of the data and settings for
some reason, perhaps it is messed up. I can create a second user account to
the same mount point such as abc2 as my new user name and move things over
at my convenience.

I used to use this method for all of my distributions. I had one large home
partition and had abcu for Ubuntu and abcm for Mepis, abcf for Fedora etc. I
could move files around as I saw fit from one home folder to another.

If this is your first time, you can copy all of the files from your backed
up /home folder to your new one and they will be used as if it was your old
/home folder. The exception to this is Thunderbird. For some reason it needs
to be started before you add your backed up files or it will overwrite all
of your old messages and account settings the first time you use it. I don't
know why. This does not happen if you are reusing the old /home folder.

You will have to re-install any programmes that do not come with Ubuntu.
However, there is even an easy way to automate this. You can back up your
application list to a text file and apt can be made to re-install everything
on your list.

This sounds more complicated that it actually is.